A Royal Visit
by jacobk
Summary: Brockton Bay receives a visit from the widely acclaimed strongest man on earth. Nothing will ever be the same.
1. Chapter 1

AN: I don't love doing crossovers, but I thought Worm deserved a visit from the widely acclaimed strongest hero on earth.

ooOoo

The space between dimensions was dark and quiet. Peaceful. I hadn't expected the process to take so long. It was nice to have a moment to contemplate everything that had gone wrong to bring me to this point. A moment to come to terms with my upcoming demise.

It all started with the prerelease copy of Doki Doki Sisters 2: Hearts Aflutter. Well, no. If I'm honest, it all started when I allowed the Hero Association to name me King. When I let them give me the credit for the monsters killed by somebody else. Looking back on it, it seems like an obvious mistake for an ordinary guy with no special powers to let himself be known far and wide as an S-class hero, but it did come with a nice salary. And people really looked up to me. On some level I knew it would end in tears eventually, but I took things day by day and just tried to enjoy the ride. I never thought that something as innocent as a dating simulator would prove to be my undoing.

Somehow the company that made the game had discovered that I was a fan. It was embarrassing, but on the bright side they had decided to show their appreciation for all of my heroic work by sending me a copy of the latest version of the game weeks before it would be made available to the public. Not having a copy of my address, they sent it to me care of the Hero Association. Which meant I had to go to the Hero Association building to pick it up.

The Hero Association was a beautiful building. It wasn't that far from my apartment. The people there all liked me. The problem was that they all thought I was the kind of hero who was eager to get into fights. The kind of hero who would jump at the chance to fight off a monster attack. When I was out on my own I could just ignore my cell phone when they tried to call me in. When I was face to face with the person giving the message I couldn't just pretend I didn't know what was going on. I would have to come up with some excuse for why the monster wasn't worth my time. Eventually somebody would have to notice that I never actually fought any monsters.

Still, life is always a matter of risk and reward. I took my chances and made the trip to the building to secure my prize. It was just my luck that I was in the middle of signing for the package when they made their great scientific breakthrough. I could hardly run away from a summons that had been delivered in person. Besides, I didn't realize there was anything special going on until I showed up at the meeting room and saw that it was filled with S-class heroes.

I dealt with my sense of impending dread the way that I always do. I ignored it. I spent most of the meeting daydreaming about going home and firing up my new game, but I got the gist of it: our world had been experiencing a noticeable increase in monster attacks. They were happening more and the monsters were more powerful. Hero Association scientists had traced the source of the monsters to another dimension. They had a machine that could build a path between dimensions, but it was finicky. The dimensional planes would align to allow two heroes to travel to the monster dimension later that afternoon. The next opportunity to build a path, to either travel to the monster dimension or to retrieve the team, would be in two weeks.

Tatsumaki insisted that she would be part of any expeditionary team. It was at that moment that my daydreaming would cost me everything. The thing is, Tatsumaki, the tornado of terror, is an amazingly powerful esper. She looks like a harmless teenage girl, but she had more than earned her spot as the Hero Association #2 with her sheer destructive potential. Unfortunately, the only thing that can match her strength and skill with telekinesis is her abrasive personality. The prospect of spending two weeks partnered with her had everybody else at the table making their excuses for why they couldn't go. I didn't say anything because I wasn't paying attention and the idea took hold: who better to pair with the powerful telekinetic than King, the strongest man on earth?

And so, inevitably, I was now on a trip to a world full of monsters. I could have gotten out of it, of course. All I would have had to do was to tell the truth. To admit to the lies I had told. To accept the humiliation of being discovered as an S-class fraud. In the end, I couldn't do it. They say the fear of embarrassment is worse than the fear of death. I guess for me it was true. Or maybe I was tired of being afraid of death and embarrassment all the time and I just wanted it to end. I couldn't say for sure. I did ask the scientists to send me through first. If I was going to die a really pathetic death against the first monster to attack me I at least didn't want Tatsumaki to see it.

Now, waiting in the quiet darkness between worlds, I could see that this was the latest in a string of foolish decisions. I had allowed my pride to overrule my common sense over and over again. Tatsumaki was a ludicrously strong hero. Even on a world of monsters, it was entirely possible that I could hide behind her for two weeks and survive. Surely my life was worth a little embarrassment? I suppose in the end, I never really made a principled decision between death and humiliation. When humiliation was close, I did what I could to avoid it; now, with death looming, survival was the only thing on my mind. I was hardly better than a child snatching his hand away from a hot stove.

I was drawn from my thoughts when the blackness was replaced with a rush of sight and sounds. Whatever I was expecting from a dimension full of monsters, this wasn't it. It looked like a city. A human city. A dirty human city. I had appeared in an alleyway at nighttime. A streetlight on the corner provided enough illumination for me to make out the shape of the overflowing dumpster to my right. I could also just see a human figure standing on the sidewalk by the entrance to the alley.

I blinked. The scene in front of me didn't change. Neither did the smell. Was this even a different dimension? I decided there was only one way to find out. I took a few steps toward the mouth of the alley.

"Excuse me."

"What the fuck!"

He obviously hadn't heard me approaching. When he spun around to face me I could see he had the sort of hardened features I associated with career criminals. I was starting to regret my decision to talk to him, but there was no going back now.

"Where am I?"

He smiled, then drew a gun from his waistband. "You're in the wrong place at the wrong time, motherfucker. Now hand over your wallet."

I froze.

One thing more than any other has helped maintain my facade as a powerful hero. When I'm terrified, when I'm scared out of my mind, my eyes don't widen. My face doesn't go pale. Instead, my features always freeze into a blank expression. The only outward sign of my fear was the beating of my heart, which was loud enough to be heard from yards away. Back home, they called it the "King Engine," and took it as a sign of my eagerness for battle.

"You retarded or something? Give. me. your. money."

This guy clearly had no idea who I was. He just saw a normal man, terrified at the sight of a gun. What an ironic way to die. After being given credit for killing so many terrible monsters, all that it took to bring me down was one thug who wasn't afraid. I should have been cursing at the stupidity of the situation, but I was frozen in place by my own fear.

"Motherfucker, I will shoot you in the face if you don't-urk!"

The end of his sentence was cut off as the gun went flying out of his hand and the man was sent sideways by an invisible force, crashing into the alley wall. He was held there, pinned in place with his arms and legs spread out to the side. I was still staring in shock as Tatsumaki floated up next to me and put her hand on my shoulder.

"Calm down, King. He can't answer questions if you splatter him all over the alley."

I blinked. It took me a moment to pull my thoughts together and realize what had happened. Tatsumaki had assumed that I was in the throes of bloodlust and had intervened before I could kill the hapless mugger. She had saved my life, but of course I couldn't thank her for it. Not trusting my voice, I gave her a simple nod.

"This doesn't look like a monster dimension," she said, before turning to the man she had pinned to the wall. "Where are we?"

"Brockton Bay."

She looked at me. I shrugged, not recognizing the city name any more than she did. She turned back to continue her interrogation.

"Where is the Hero Association?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

I could see Tatsumaki's shoulders hunch in anger. I had to fight the instinctive urge to take a step away. It had been a long time since anybody had been dumb enough to be so disrespectful to the Hero Association's #2 S-rank right to her face. I half-expected her to crush the guy right there, but her response was more restrained. The gun that she had taken from him floated back into view, then began to visibly deform. In moments it was nothing more than a mangled lump of metal.

"Try again."

"Look, I don't, I mean," the man stuttered, all his bravado gone, "you mean the PRT? The cape cops?"

"I suppose."

"They're at the Rig! Out on the water, you can't miss it. The ferry station is just a few blocks that way."

"Very well."

Tatsumaki released her hold on the man. He fell to the ground, crashing to his hands and knees. She turned and floated off in the direction he had indicated. I made to follow her, but stopped when I heard him speak.

"That's it? You're just going to walk away?"

I gave him my best glare. "Don't spit on our kindness."

Physically, we were in much the same situation as before. He didn't have a gun, but it hardly mattered. I'm not a very strong guy. I've never even been in a real fight. If he attacked me with a knife, or with his bare hands, the outcome was hardly in doubt. Tatsumaki, confident in my abilities, wouldn't intervene even if she did notice an attack on me.

Psychologically, of course, it was a different story. His entire will to fight had deserted him. He scrambled to his feet with a muttered apology before running away from us as fast as his legs would take him. I shook my head. I was still mentally out of sorts myself, to be honest. Intimidating a street punk was one thing, but I doubted it would be so easy to put one over on the local heroes.

ooOoo


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Time to roll for diplomacy. And maybe bluff.

ooOoo

The Brockton Bay heroes were some cool customers. Even after Tatsumaki lifted the ferry out of the water and flew it out to their base, all they did was usher us into a conference room. Nobody attacked us or anything. I think Tatsumaki was a little disappointed. She had announced that she was just bored with how long the trip was taking, but I could tell that she wanted to pick a fight so that she could show off her strength.

I was relieved that things went smoothly, though of course I couldn't show it. I tried to distract myself by looking out the window, but it didn't really help. Oh, the view of the city skyline across the water was impressive, even slightly distorted by the force field, but... come on, their base had a force field. Our base didn't have a force field. What kind of crazy powers did the heroes here have? I had crossed my arm to keep them from trembling, but I could still feel the acceleration in my heartbeat that signaled the first trickles of panic reaching into my mind.

This was a worst case scenario. Well, actually, landing on a planet full of monsters and being killed would probably have been worse. Or if that mugger had shot me in the face before Tatsumaki arrived, that would have been worse for sure. Or, well, never mind. This was still bad.

The thing is, heroes are violent people. They direct that violence at acceptable targets so people don't really think of it that way, but it's true. A normal person, if you called them short, they would grumble a bit or maybe yell at you. Tatsumaki would launch somebody hundreds of yards through the air. If they were lucky, they wouldn't be launched toward any buildings. What if there was somebody like that here, only I didn't know who they were or what would set them off? Or what if somebody challenged me to a "friendly" fight? Half the heroes back home thought the best way to get to know somebody was by punching them in the face. I only avoided that kind of stuff because people were afraid of me, but here I wouldn't be able to rely on my reputation.

Basically, I was planning to stay quiet and hope nobody noticed me.

I was brought out of my thoughts by a small hand patting me on the arm. I looked down to see that Tatsumaki had floated her way to my side.

"King, let me do most of the talking. We shouldn't need to fight our way out of here."

I just stared at her. What the hell was she talking about? I noticed the sudden silence and managed to figure it out: she had heard my heartbeat pick up and thought that I was excited to fight my way through the local heroes. The hypocrisy was staggering. It was fine for her to throw boats around but then she scolds me for starting to show off my power? I might have said something if not for the fact I didn't actually have any power. I almost laughed, but I knew once that started I wouldn't be able to stop. Instead I just gave her a nod and turned back to the window.

At least the distraction had calmed down my heartbeat. Seriously, that couldn't be healthy. It was just my luck that I had a medical condition that I couldn't even get treated because everybody thought it was a superpower.

Fortunately the door opened before I could get myself worked up again. I turned from the window in time to see two heroes walk in. In front was a big guy in a suit of metal armor. He was almost as tall as me. His helmet covered the whole top half of his face, but I could still tell from his expression that he was a serious kind of guy. He was followed by a woman in some kind of army getup that was topped off with a flag bandanna for a mask. She looked a little wary. Considering the situation, I didn't blame her.

"Please, take a seat," armored guy said. I could hear a faint clacking of metal on metal as he followed his own advice. The military woman sat down next to him. Tatsumaki floated over and sat cross legged in midair. She did that at the Hero Association whenever she could get away with it because she looked a little taller when she floated above the seat cushions. The local heroes at least appeared to take it in stride. Finally, I left the safety of my hiding spot against the wall and slouched into the seat across from the armored guy.

"Since you aren't from around here, we should begin with introductions," the armored guy said. "I am Armsmaster. I'm the leader of this branch of the Protectorate. As a tinker, I make devices like my armor and some other things."

So all we knew was his name and a bunch of generic information you could probably find on the internet. How much could he possibly expect from us in return? Anybody would see through such a transparent ploy.

"Tatsumaki, the tornado of terror! I am the Hero Association number two S-rank hero and the strongest esper in the world."

She finished by giving a thumbs up. The rest of us stared at her for a moment. The military woman finally cleared her throat and spoke next.

"Miss Militia. I'm Armsmaster's second in command," she said. "My power, I guess you could say is weapons."

I decided to keep my introduction short. The last thing I needed to do was catch the eye of this world's Atomic Samurai.

"I am King. I did not come here to boast."

"Why did you come here, exactly?" Armsmaster asked. Fortunately, Tatsumaki answered before I had to risk making a fool of myself by stumbling over the explanation.

"Our world has seen a dramatic increase in demon and dragon level monster attacks over the last fifteen years," she began, then paused as she saw their looks of confusion. "That is to say, monsters that threaten a city or multiple cities. Hero Association scientists recently traced the source of the increase. They sent us to the source dimension so we could see what was going on and hopefully solve the problem."

"This wasn't what we were expecting," I added, gesturing at the room around us.

"What were you expecting, exactly?" Miss Militia asked.

I looked at her for a moment, then shrugged and decided to go with the truth. "I thought I would be attacked by monsters right away and would have to fight them until I died."

"What? You never told me that when you insisted on going first! Why didn't you say anything?" Tatsumaki asked, accompanying her words with a slap to my shoulder. Fortunately she didn't put any esper power behind it, so there wouldn't be anything worse than severe bruising in the morning.

I scratched the back of my neck sheepishly. I should have known nothing good ever comes from telling the truth. "Heh, I didn't want you to worry."

Armsmaster interrupted us before Tatsumaki could say anything else. "You say city-threatening attacks have become more frequent. How frequent are they exactly?"

"Let's see," Tatsumaki said, before she began ticking points off on her fingers, "last month, hmmm, one, two, three, four... how would you count one attack with four city-destroying monsters?"

"Just one attack, I think," I volunteered when neither of the other heroes said anything.

"Pah! Fine, but that was still three kills for me and just one for Atomic Samurai," Tatsumaki said. "So that's... well, I guess we can only count your kills where there was enough of a body left to study, and I'm not sure how to count the alien invasion, and I honestly can't get half the S-Rank heroes to fill out their paperwork anyway. Coming up with an exact number is actually tough."

"In any event," Armsmaster said, "we only have city threatening attacks here every three months or so."

"Huh," I said, surprised. "So this is like a vacation world?"

"From some perspectives, I suppose," Miss Militia said, smoothly joining the conversation when her boss seemed to be at a loss for words. "I don't see any way that our world could be a source of the attacks on yours, though."

"Those eggheads put the wrong coordinates in the dimensional transfer device!" Tatsumaki said, bringing her fist down on the conference table. The table held together, so she couldn't have been that upset. "I should have known they'd screw it up."

"Are you," Miss Militia said, then paused, visibly searching for a more tactful phrase, "stuck here?"

"No," Tatsumaki said, "in two weeks they will reactivate the machine and bring us home. Those idiots won't be able to screw up something that simple."

"In that case," Armsmaster said, "please allow me to give you a few things."

He retrieved some papers from inside his armor and slid them across the table to me and Tatsumaki. On the bottom of the stack was what looked like a road map. On top of that was a tourist's guide to Brockton Bay. Capping off the pile was a slender brochure bearing the title "WELCOME TO EARTH BET: DON'T PANIC" in soothing capital letters. I double checked to be sure of what I was seeing before I said anything.

"You have a brochure for dimensional travelers."

"Not exactly," Armsmaster admitted. "Sometimes parahumans appear in this world whose powers have warped their bodies to the point that they can't pass as normal people. For some reason those parahumans often suffer complete amnesia. Part of our job is to help them out until they build a new life for themselves."

"To that point," Miss Militia said, "we can provide you two with an apartment for the next two weeks along with a stipend to cover day to day expenses. All we ask is that you try to stay out of fights."

"We don't need your charity!" Tatsumaki snapped, then paused, tapping her chin several times in thought. "Although, I guess my credit cards won't work here."

"Exactly," Miss Militia said. The corners of her eyes turned up as she smiled. "We wouldn't want you to go out beating up muggers for petty cash."

"That would be illegal," Armsmaster added.

Everybody turned to look at me for some reason. I ducked my head slightly in acknowledgment. "I could use a vacation anyway."

"You guys don't have any monsters to kill at all?" Tatsumaki asked. "That's so boring."

"I might," Armsmaster said. He was speaking slowly, clearly turning over scenarios in his head as he thought. I could sympathize. The only thing scarier than Tatsumaki fighting by your side was Tatsumaki fighting against you. "I'd have to talk to my boss, and her boss, and fill out a lot of paperwork. If you really want to fight, though, we can probably find you some monsters."

"All right! I-" Tatsumaki said, before interrupting herself with an enormous yawn. "I think traveling between dimensions tired me out. Can we go to that apartment now?"

"Of course," Armsmaster said, tapping a button on the chest of his mech suit. "I'll send a couple of troopers with you to make sure you can find the place."

And to keep an eye on us, no doubt. Not that I could really blame him. I could only imagine what kind of clusterfuck would have happened if visitors like us crashed the gates of the Hero Association.

"Hey," I said, holding my hand out across the table. Armsmaster and Miss Militia both started when I spoke. Armsmaster eyed my hand for only a second before reaching out to complete the handshake. "This could have gone a lot worse, but you guys have been really cool about everything. I appreciate it."

It was a little strange to be shaking hands with a guy in a mech suit. His gauntlet had a lot more give to it than I expected. It made sense if part of his job involved working with high tech machinery. The suit was obviously built to give him superhuman strength, but fortunately he didn't try to crush my hand. If anything, it was a perfectly calibrated, firm but not too firm, manly handshake. Maybe it was computers built into the suit, or maybe Armsmaster was just a cool guy like that.

He chuckled a bit at my comment. "I'll admit I was nervous when they told me the ferry was flying out to the base. But when you didn't try to throw it through our shields or anything I was pretty sure we could talk things out."

With that he escorted us out of the room and introduced the pair of troopers that would be taking us to our temporary home. I have to admit that the thought of spending two weeks in a world where nobody expected me to do anything, a world where the local Hero Association was led by somebody cool like Armsmaster, it really made me think that my luck was starting to turn around.

ooOoo

Armsmaster waited until their new guests were out of earshot before he activated his PRT communicator. He put it on speaker so that Miss Militia would be able to follow the conversation.

"This is Armsmaster, we have a code green, confirmation sierra alpha india."

"Piggot. Confirm code green, confirmation tango alpha mike. Good work people."

Armsmaster nodded. Mostly it was nice to have confirmation from the remote team that he hadn't been mastered, but praise from the director was always appreciated. He kept quiet, waiting for the rest of the roll call.

"Protectorate team one, code green, standing down."

You never would have known from hearing his voice on the radio that Dauntless had been hauled out of bed into an emergency situation a half hour ago. His presentation was as irritatingly perfect as ever.

"Protectorate team two, code green, standing down and heading for bed."

Assault, on the other hand, was just as sloppy as ever. Armsmaster removed his helmet and started massaging his temples. He knew some people called him a hardass behind his back. The worst thing he could wish on those people was that they would one day have to manage a team half as annoying as his.

"Wards, code green, standing down."

Armsmaster felt his headache intensify at the reminder of another potential shitstorm heading his way. He stood by his decision. In dealing with dimensional intruders, they needed to have all hands on deck. They were lucky that this visit had ended without any violence. So far. Even so, if the Youth Guard caught wind of the fact that he had involved the Wards in something like this... at the very least it would double the already prodigious load of paperwork this mess had created.

"PRT team alpha, code green, standing down."

"PRT team bravo, code green, standing down."

Armsmaster slouched a bit in relief at the final confirmation that nobody was going to do anything stupid and risk sparking off the first interdimensional war. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was forgetting something, though. Ah, yes. He straightened up in his seat and activated the communicator once more.

"Console, please contact Alexandria and inform her that she is clear to return to Los Angeles."

That done, he deactivated the communicator and relaxed back into his seat. From the corner of his eye he could see that Miss Militia had something to say, but was waiting to speak up until he was ready. Just one more reason she was a better subordinate than he deserved.

"What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking we may need to change the definition of a code green after we spend two weeks running around with little miss tornado of terror."

Armsmaster chuckled. Tatsumaki's hair color had certainly stood out. He was curious whether it was a side effect of her power, somehow natural on her dimension, or just a fashion choice. He knew better than to bring it up during their first meeting, though. Honestly, it was a little insulting how every thinker on the observation team had felt the need to spam his helmet chat warning him not to comment on the girl's appearance. Sometimes thinkers really fell into the trap of thinking everybody else was some kind of idiot.

He shook his head as he dragged his thoughts back to the present. "She's not the one that worries me."

"Really? The telekinetic with no Manton limit who casually lifted a boat into the air doesn't worry you?" Miss Militia asked. She sobered up when she saw he was serious. "King is that frightening? Did you get something with your lie detector?"

"It's not a-" Armsmaster said, then sighed. His social analysis algorithm needed weeks if not months of testing and refinement before it would be something as simple and reliable as a lie detector, but it was no use getting into the technical details with her. "The only time it sensed deceit, King was talking to Tatsumaki. When he said he just didn't want her to worry."

"Well, obviously," Miss Militia said. She looked amused. Armsmaster was a little curious what she was getting at, but it wasn't really germane to his point so he set his curiosity aside. Besides, if it was important she'd bring it up later.

"Look, during that whole meeting, did you ever see King do anything that a baseline human couldn't do?"

"No," Miss Militia admitted, shaking her head. "Maybe his powers are subtle?"

"If we were sending two capes to invade a dimension of Endbringers, would they have subtle powers?" Armsmaster asked. Miss Militia shook her head, conceding the point. "How many times have you met a new parahuman? A new teammate, a suspect, a potential recruit, whatever, one thing is always the same. They always do something to show off their power. To show that they deserve respect, and that we should treat them seriously. Even the thinkers find a way to show off."

"What are you saying?"

"He didn't see us as a threat. At all," Armsmaster said. "He was polite because he felt like being polite. Or maybe he's just a polite guy, I don't know. But he knew, deep down, that if it came to a fight, it wouldn't even be close. He wouldn't have to take us seriously."

Armsmaster closed his eyes, briefly, lost in a memory. During the first week of Wards training, the team had been brought together for a friendly spar against Legend. He remembered the same booming voice. The same commanding presence. The same polite attitude. And the same complete disregard of any possibility that they could pose a threat. At the time, Armsmaster had been a hot-headed teenager and taken it as a challenge. Now, with years of experience under his belt, he could acknowledge the bitter truth: some foes would simply always be beyond him.

He opened his eyes and dragged himself back to the present with a sigh. "We'll have to wait for the director's approval before we issue the final protocol, but put this in the file: absolutely no one is to approach either of our guests with one iota of hostile intent. Period. Put it in bold face, underline it, repeat it a few times. Whatever it takes to get the message across. And put Glenn Chambers on finding a polite way to get the message out to the public."

Part of him was grimly curious about what would happen if Lung was stupid enough to pick a fight with King. He thought the dragon was too street smart to actually do it, but it would be quite a fight to see. The more responsible part of Armsmaster, though, wasn't willing to see his city burnt down just to satisfy his curiosity.

ooOoo


	3. Chapter 3

AN: You guys knew who had to be the first opponent...

ooOoo

Uber studied the picture he'd loaded up from Parahumans Online. The man in the picture looked, in a word, serious. The scars over his eye naturally gave him a dangerous air, but it was more than that. Uber knew for a fact that this was a candid shot taken shortly after the ferry out to the Rig had completed its maiden flight under the control of a crazy telekinetic. Despite that, the man in the picture was completely calm. Almost apathetic. Like hijacking a boat and flying it out to the local Protectorate headquarters was just another day at the office.

A small trickle of fear made itself known at the back of his mind. Uber firmly shoved it down to focus on practical questions.

"They just left an unmasked picture up on PHO?"

He glanced at his partner in crime in time to receive a nod, and a gesture at the screen. "The PRT gave a statement."

Uber obliged the implicit request and opened up a new tab and navigating over to the PRT video. His computer was a thing of beauty. Next-next generation processors, a tinker-designed graphics card, ten different speakers tuned to provide a 360 degree sound picture, five different input devices, and a frankly gratuitously large monitor. It was an electronic mockery of the idea that crime doesn't pay.

His computer was ridiculously overqualified for the role of glorified web browser, but Uber didn't complain. This was important. Crime hadn't been paying as well lately, at least not for the two of them.

"The girl's the telekinetic, right?" Uber asked as he navigated through the cumbersome PRT web page. "What's the deal with the guy?"

"Nobody knows," Leet said. "That's why this is so perfect."

He was prepared to continue expounding on the brilliance of his idea but piped down when Uber finally pulled up the video. Uber leaned forward to tick up the volume before hitting play. The screen was filled with the unfortunate visage of Glenn Chambers, the PRT's head of public relations.

"The two individuals seen in those pictures have recently established themselves as a friendly presence in the city of Brockton Bay. If all goes well they could make a great contribution to public safety. If you treat them with courtesy and respect you will likely receive the same in return. That said, they are not officially affiliated with the Protectorate. If you make the mistake of picking a fight with them, the Protectorate will not intervene to save you from the inevitable consequences of your terrible decision."

The image froze as Uber paused the video. "That sounds bad."

Leet waved his hand dismissively. "Obviously some stuffed shirt from the PRT isn't going to endorse criminal behavior."

Uber shrugged, then unpaused the video.

"Listen, if you think you have some funny idea for a viral video or something like that, I need to tell you two things. First, you probably aren't as funny as you think you are. Second, no joke is worth dying for."

Uber paused the video again. "That seemed pretty specific."

Leet was unmoved. "That guy obviously doesn't understand humor."

When he unpaused the video once again, Glenn turned to stare straight at the camera, ignoring the reporter whose question had prompted the discussion to begin with.

"Just walk away. You don't have to do this. Leave them alone, and no harm will come to you. Just walk away. I'm begging you, with tears in my eyes. Just walk away."

Uber stopped the video. "I really don't feel comfortable with this one."

"You've seen the same ratings that I have. We need to turn things around. A live stream of a fight with the mysterious new hero could take us to a whole new level."

Uber shook his head. "Yeah, the basement of the morgue."

"Seriously, do you have any better ideas? Because if the numbers don't pick up we're going to have to start hiring out to the gangs around here."

Uber grimaced. The nice thing about being out on their own was that he could say no. Joining up with a gang would make for financial security, but he who paid the piper always called the tune. Uber had done some sketchy things, but he still wasn't quite ready to outsource his conscience to somebody like Lung.

"We'll think of something."

"We didn't think of something yesterday. Or the day before," Leet said. "This opportunity is a gift from above. We just have to reach out and take it. Come on, man, we can do this."

And so Uber found himself striding out from a dark alleyway onto the Boardwalk, where he was soon illuminated by a bright spotlight. He was wearing a brown gi, which was far from the most embarrassing costume he'd worn in the name of his art. It looked pretty sharp, really, even if he did say so himself.

Another spotlight shone down on Leet, standing atop a nearby store. Leet was in a tinkertech variation of a muscle suit, nicely filling out his red tuxedo. A third and final spotlight picked out a man in a hoodie and baseball cap who had been just another anonymous shopper up until a moment ago.

"We now declare the opening of our special tournament," Leet began, his voice picked up and carried out over the crowd by their trusty portable speaker system.

"Wait, I get it," their target said, throwing back his hoodie to reveal his scarred visage. Leet let the man finish, either out of courtesy or because he was taken aback by his sheer presence. "King of Fighters, right? So I'm Terry Bogard? Man, I feel under dressed."

Uber felt a bead of sweat form on his forehead. Who was this guy? Everything they had read suggested that he was some kind of brute. So how could he possibly know that kind of video game trivia off the top of his head? Was he a thinker of some kind? Or... Uber felt his fists clench a the thought: was he like Alexandria, an unstoppable force, immovable object, and human supercomputer all rolled into one?

King hadn't even bothered to take any kind of combat stance. The guy was still holding onto his shopping bags. Uber's powers only let him pick up one set of skills at a time at a master level, but skills that he used a lot or that he trained using his power tended to stick around. One skill that he had worked on a lot was cold reading. He wasn't getting much off of King. The only thing he could tell for sure was that he was utterly unconcerned at the prospect of a fight.

"That's right!" Leet announced, working his way back to the script. "We've heard what you've been calling yourself and wanted to give you the chance to prove that you deserve the title of King."

"Heh. All right," King said, cracking his neck and setting down his shopping bags. "I should warn you, back home my job is to exterminate monsters. I don't really do a lot of friendly, pull your punches kind of fights. But I'll try my best."

As he spoke, King looked at Uber. It wasn't the practiced, evaluating look of a martial artist. It took Uber a moment to place it. It was the same kind of look that he would give a spider when he was deciding whether to pick it up and take it outside or just smash it and be done with it. The spider might live or it might die, but either way it wouldn't be a problem for him for long.

Uber felt goosebumps rising along his forearms and a whole new wave of crushing regret. He just wished he could pinpoint the moment when his life went so terribly awry. It was a small consolation that every animal instinct in his body was telling him that even if he was currently on the wrong path, his life wasn't going to continue much farther in that wrong direction.

"Very well," Leet announced, raising his arms above his head. "Prepare yourselves!"

"Or-"

It took Uber a moment to realize that he was the one who had spoken.

Leet's head snapped around to stare at his partner. "Or?"

"Or..." Uber trailed off, not sure what to say.

"You're the video game guys, right?" King said, breaking their impromptu stare down. "How about I come back here tomorrow and you guys bring the game with you? That way we can fight all out and everybody walks away at the end."

"Sounds good! See you tomorrow!" Uber said, rushing to agree before King could change his mind.

King nodded, then picked up his shopping bags and ambled off. In the mean time, Leet jumped off of his rooftop spot. The tinker-tech suit easily absorbed the shock of the landing, allowing him to stalk over to where Uber was standing.

"What the hell, man? You can't just go off script like that!"

"Dude, I just saved your life. Show some fucking gratitude."

Uber kept his eyes on King as the man walked away. He and Leet always talked about wanting to make it to the big leagues. After a small taste of what that was like, he wasn't sure that was what he wanted any more. So what did he want?

Uber was still turning that question over in his head as he heard Leet curse and start fumbling for the controls that would shut off their live feed.

ooOoo

After such an eventful shopping trip, I thought I had more than earned the right to veg out and read on the couch for the rest of the day. For a world that was so similar to home, the popular culture had some surprising changes. The Maggie Holt series was incredibly popular here, while we didn't have anything like it. I thought the book was a little derivative at first, but it didn't take long for the plot to draw me in. I was halfway through the second book in the series when Tatsumaki threw open our front door and strode in like a conquering hero.

"I'm back from Ellisburg," she announced.

"Welcome home," I said, glancing up from the book before returning to my reading. Maggie was about to discover an important clue about who or what killed her friend. Well, that or get killed herself, but I didn't think that was likely with the title character.

"This guy Nilbog filled the whole town with monsters. The whole town! Below ground, the surface, even some in the sky."

"Good fight?" I asked, not looking up. No, Maggie, don't open that closet door!

"Eh, not really. The monsters were all weak, and the town wasn't that big. It wasn't that exciting, really. But," she said, and my book suddenly jumped out of my hands and closed itself before floating over to the coffee table, "at least I did something more productive than just arranging some electronic play date with a couple of villains."

I turned and dropped my feet off the couch, levering myself into a seated position before taking a second to study her expression. The thing about Tatsumaki is that if I just gave in and let her have her way all the time she'd eventually lose all respect for me. If I annoyed her too much, though, she could easily kill me by accident. Or on purpose. It was a delicate balance. In a lot of ways this mission would have been safer if it had just been two weeks of monster fighting. All in all it seemed like she was in a decent mood right now, though, so instead of apologizing I just smiled at her.

"Jealous?"

"Don't be ridiculous," she sniffed, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "What I want to know is why the S-class hero King would go out of his way to avoid a fight."

It was the single greatest test of my poker face of all time. It took every ounce of will power in every fiber of my being not to break out into hysterical laughter. Truly, if the Hero Association understood one tenth of the effort that I put in to remaining expressionless, that would have promoted me to S-class rank six on the spot. Of course, I couldn't say anything about it. Instead I sat up and reached out to the coffee table, ignoring my book and retrieving the small pamphlet I'd received from Armsmaster.

"Did you read this thing?"

Tatsumaki didn't say anything, which is about as close as she ever came to admitting fault. I accepted her silence as a no and continued.

"The way people get powers here is strange. Some people have the potential for powers but go their whole lives without knowing it. Some people go through horrible situations and never get powers. But when somebody with potential goes through a horrible situation, there's a pretty good chance they'll trigger and get a power," I said, holding up a finger so she'd let me finish. "When I say a horrible situation, I mean mentally scarring, gonna need therapy kind of stuff. And the power is usually some kind of monkey's paw. Fixes the problem but leaves you worse off than before, seems like it fixes the problem but just makes things worse, stuff like that."

"That's terrible."

I shrugged. "Some people bounce back from it and become heroes. Some people break and become monsters. And some people just kind of drift around and become petty criminals. I'm not going to kill some kid for being stupid, even if he does have a superpower."

Also, because I couldn't kill them and they would trash me if we got into an actual fight. I could only hope that part of the story wasn't coming out in my body language.

I looked up to see Tatsumaki looking at me strangely. "What?"

"I didn't know you had a sensitive side."

I looked away. "Don't tell anybody, you'll ruin my reputation."

By the time I looked back she had made her way over to the end table and was rummaging through my haul from the market. She seized a set of dvds with a flourish and came drifting back over to the couch.

"You bought movies."

"Yeah," I said, smiling. "You remember when we were kids they were going to make the Star Wars prequel movies until that big monster attack happened? Here the movies actually got made."

It had been all I could do not to jump for joy when I'd seen the movies available on the shelves of the store. For a discount, no less. I'm not too proud to admit that some manly tears were shed this morning.

"Do you want to watch it?"

"Nah," I said, shaking my head. "I'm saving them for after we get home. I even bought the player to make sure we can see it there. That way the whole Hero Association can watch it. I want my first time seeing the movie to be special, you know?"

Her whole face darkened in an instant. "Fine!"

The movie launched itself from her hands and caught me in the chest. I was leaning back in the couch and the impact was enough to send the whole thing crashing over backwards. I don't know how long I spent staring at the ceiling, trying to catch my breath. I scrambled back to my feet just in time to see Tatsumaki disappear into her room. The door slammed shut behind her of its own accord.

I stared at the door for a minute, scratching my head in confusion. Things had been going so well. She must have really wanted to see that movie. I never realized she was such a big Star Wars fan. I thought about giving in and putting the movie on, but decided against it. Honestly, she couldn't be too upset if the building was still standing.

I crouched down and tried lifting the couch back upright. The couch didn't move, but I damn near threw out my back in the effort. Giving it up as a bad job, I snagged my book off the coffee table and retreated back to my own room.

ooOoo

Lisa had done a lot of things she'd never expected to do since she ran away from home. Crossed lines she'd set for herself and lines set out by society. Every time she'd thought she'd found her limit, she'd ended up going past it. She'd told herself that it was necessary. That everything would work out in the end. Sometimes she wondered, though. She really did. And after today, she wouldn't even be able to say "at least I never watched Uber and Leet stream their idiocy."

The most embarrassing part was that she would probably be watching even if Coil weren't twisting her arm. She could never resist a mystery. And there was no greater mystery in Brockton Bay, or maybe the country, than the man known as King. Lisa had long since infiltrated the PRT's servers, so she knew more than most about the two powerful capes that claimed to have arrived at Brockton Bay from another dimension. But when it came to King and his powers, she knew only what the PRT knew: nothing.

And now Uber and Leet had managed to get the mystery man to appear on their show. Or he was using them for some reason. Either way, Lisa wasn't about to turn up her nose at any source of information. Her power gave her the ability to solve mysteries that would have had Sherlock Holmes crying himself to sleep, but even she needed some data to start with.

She checked things over one last time as the stream went live. Her bedroom door was shut, minimizing distractions from outside. The lights were on a remote control so she could turn them off as soon as the stream ended. Her supplies were prepared on the bedside table. One glass of water. Two extra strength headache pills. A chemical activated cold compress. She was ready to abuse the hell out of her thinker power.

On screen, the chat booted up first. Uber and Leet had to be setting records with their audience tonight. The chat was flying by almost too quickly for even Lisa to keep up. She frowned, and opened the gates on her power just a little bit. _Yep, totally useless_. She muted the chat just as King appeared on screen.

"Before we get started, our audience was hoping to get to know you a little bit. Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?"

It was Leet's voice. The camera panned over to fit him and King into the frame. Leet looked like he was still a little salty over having his plans disrupted, but more than that he was nervous to be so close to a powerful parahuman. Lisa chuckled. That bout of nerves was probably the smartest thing to cross Leet's mind today.

For his part, King simply shrugged in response to the question.

"First off, rumor has it that you arrived here from another dimension. Is that true?"

His delivery wasn't terrible, though it would have been better if he weren't obviously reading the question off of a cue card.

"Yes."

 _Telling the truth. Not his first rodeo._

King's voice was deep and commanding. He kept his eyes locked on the camera. There was no stutter, no fidgeting, nothing to betray any nervousness about public speaking. This was an experienced hero who had spoken to the media before. That, or he was simply so powerful that he didn't feel fear anymore, so-Lisa shut down that line of thought. Her power was useful, but if she allowed it to run wild with speculation off of small bits of data it could wind up in some strange places.

"What do you think of Brockton Bay so far?"

"It's nice. Peaceful," King said. The ghost of a smile flitted across his face. "Nobody's even really tried to kill me since I got here."

 _Completely relaxed. Sees Brockton Bay and Earth Bet as a vacation destination._

"Well, I'm sure we're all glad to hear that you like our town. Now, the PRT has released a few clips of video from what some are calling the 'Eradication of Ellisburg.' Do you have any comment on what happened?"

"Ellisburg?" King said, scratching his chin. "Oh, yeah. Tatsumaki said it was pretty boring, so I was glad I spent the day shopping instead."

 _Death of Nilbog genuinely slipped his mind. Proud of himself for remembering such a trivial detail._

"Boring? But-" Leet began, his shock mirroring Lisa's own until he was cut off.

"Look, are we here to talk or are we here to game?"

"Aha, a fair question. Let's begin!"

Lisa had to give them points for style at least as they wheeled an honest to goodness Neo-Geo arcade console into the cordoned off area that had been set aside for the impromptu competition. While the machine was old, the video setup was cutting edge. A data feed came from the console itself to the stream that allowed for a faithful rendition of what was appearing on screen, while carefully positioned cameras allowed discerning viewers to set up individual displays showing the player's faces and hands as they took their places.

She had read up a bit on King of Fighters. Not that she had any interest in fighting games herself, but she wanted to be able to follow what was going on. The big feature of the game that distinguished it from its competition back in the day was the team system. Instead of choosing an individual fighter and doing a best of three match, each player chose three fighters to be on their team. As each fighter was knocked out, the next in line would jump in. The last team standing was the winner.

Uber chose the three fighters that had been used by each of the players who placed in the top three of the King of Fighters $100,000 challenge, the largest tournament ever held featuring the game. King's first two choices were also conventional, but for his third and final fighter he picked one of the useless characters that had only been included in the game as a joke.

 _Believes he can win without his third fighter. Believes he can win using a joke character. Believes he will win no matter the circumstances._

Lisa shut down the train of thought and focused on the upcoming competition. Uber could acquire mastery of any one skill at a time. King was an unknown but certainly powerful parahuman. Even if she wasn't a fan of fighting games, Lisa expected to see an entertaining show.

As expected, Uber came out of the gate swinging. Precise, aggressive, perfectly coordinated combination attacks had King on the back foot from the gate. Everything that King tried seemed to be just a bit off, while Uber punished every mistake. King's first character was soon knocked out without putting a dent in Uber's health bar. The second fared little better. By the time his third character entered the fight, the result seemed to be a foregone conclusion. Intended by the developers as a joke, King's last hope was a little old man that was slower than all of the other characters, had less reach, and took more damage from opposing attacks. Uber's opening assault knocked of 99% of his life bar.

"I see," King said, breaking his silence for the first time since the fight started. "In a new dimension, of course the timing would be a little different."

"Dude, excuses are for scrubs," Uber replied, leaping in for the final attack.

"Heh. You're right."

Just as the last attack was about to land, King's character shifted slightly to the side. Instead of being knocked out, he started a counter-combo that knocked off a quarter of Uber's health bar and sent his character flying across the screen. King closed the gap and launched another attack. He was too far away. His character was going to miss, leaving himself wide open for Uber's counterstrike... until he canceled the attack at the last second. Now Uber's attack fell short, leaving him open for another vicious combo.

Lisa's eyes widened. She directed her attention to the display showing King's hands and pulled out all the stops on her power. How was he doing this? Perhaps he was some kind of speedster, and had been sandbagging this whole time.

 _Reaction time within human norms. Hand eye coordination within human norms. Reflexes within human norms._

Her power rejected hypotheses one after the other as King polished off Uber's first fighter and began chewing through the life bar of the second. It was possible he was some kind of combat thinker. Such a theory was difficult to rule out.

 _Timing perfect. Anticipation uncanny. But... no direct action taken from unavailable knowledge._

Lisa reached for her headache pills and swallowed them down as she watched the end of the fight. Uber was fully in flight now. It might have been comical watching the animated sprite of an overly muscled fighter run away from a little old man, if not for the clinical dismantling that followed. Despite everything that happened, her power insisted that King had done nothing unnatural. It was as if he had simply spent thousands of hours playing video games. She shook her head, rejecting the ridiculous conclusion. She needed more data.

She wouldn't be getting any from this fight. Uber's final character flew across the screen, unconscious, as King's old man adopted a victory pose. In the alternate camera, Uber had turned to stare at his opponent.

"How... my power makes me an expert at everything I try. How could I lose like that?"

"I'm disappointed that I was only able to fight the you that hides behind your power," King said, reaching out to poke Uber in the chest. "You need to find the you that believes in your heart. In your human spirit. Only then can you accomplish what you now believe to be impossible."

 _Knows he's spouting total bullshit. Accidentally mangled quote from his favorite anime._

Uber just stared at King for a moment, then suddenly leaned forward and engulfed him in a crushing hug. King awkwardly patted the other man on his back. Lisa could see Uber's shoulders heaving as he cried against King's chest. A moment later Uber collected himself and stepped back to stand on his own.

"I've been blind. I understand now what I must do."

 _Achieved perfect moment of transcendental enlightenment._

Uber turned and strode off the screen. Leet was forced to scramble after him, calling out in a futile attempt to get his partner's attention. Lisa closed her laptop, cutting off the video.

"What."

Sighing, she reached out and grabbed the cold compress. A quick flick of the wrist broke the packet inside, and after a couple of shakes she was able to hold it against her temple for a wave of soothing relief.

She couldn't draw good conclusions from bad information. Clearly there was something about King that wasn't coming through on the video cameras. If she wanted to find out his secret, she was going to have to observe him in person.

ooOoo


	4. Chapter 4

AN: If you guys want more King crossover action a reviewer suggested and I can recommend the surprisingly seamless cross with SAO on this site: The Hero: King.

ooOoo

As usual, Armsmaster finished his morning in his office hunched over a pile of paperwork. Unusually, he was smiling as he did it. While it would have been more satisfying if he could have personally ended Nilbog himself, he would still go down as a vital contributor to the operation that had ended the most notorious S-class threat on the east coast. Filling out an after action report was a small price to pay for that kind of accomplishment.

He paused in his writing when the phone rang. Armsmaster frowned. Dragon had already told him she was too busy to collaborate on their project today and nobody else ever called his office. Well, only one way to find out who was calling. He leaned over and hit the button to put the call on speaker.

"Sir, it's the front desk. You have a visitor here to see you."

The push of another button called up the video feed from the lobby. It didn't take long to spot a familiar head of green hair floating in front of the receptionist. The PRT troopers scattered throughout the lobby were very carefully not looking directly at the front desk. The civilian tourists in the lobby were being much less subtle. Fortunately it was a work day, so the lobby wasn't too crowded. Still, it wasn't a situation he could leave alone for long.

So much for his quiet day. "I'll be down momentarily."

Armsmaster turned back to his keyboard and entered the three button combination that activated the pre-programmed macro that he had established for exactly this situation. Even as he stood and left the room, a courtesy notification was being sent to Director Piggot so that she could bring the rest of the PRT up to speed on what was going on. Another message was sent to the Protectorate's internal thinker team, giving them access to his helmet camera and microphones and the ability to text him advice in real time. A third and final message sent an urgent notice to Battery instructing her to remove Assault from the rig or, as was the case now, keep him from the rig by any means necessary.

The Protectorate had a somewhat checkered history in directing one S-class threat to go after another. Usually, though, when such things went wrong it was as a result of betrayal or some kind of power politics. Armsmaster had never heard of a collaboration going bad through sheer caprice, but there was a first time for everything. Tatsumaki was certainly unique in the combination of her cavalier use of her power, the absurd strength of her power, her careless demeanor, and her hair trigger temper. For all that, she wasn't actually murderous, although Armsmaster wasn't sure she had realized that Assault would be able to survive the fall when she'd tossed him out of the helicopter on the way to Ellisburg.

As the leader of the local branch of the Protectorate Armsmaster got the credit for operations that went well. He got the blame when operations went poorly. And he had the responsibility to handle the situations that fell well outside of everybody's comfort zone. Keeping that in mind he took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and strode out into the lobby as soon as the elevator doors opened.

Things weren't in crisis as he arrived on the scene, at least. Tatsumaki was waiting quietly, bobbing slightly in the air as she took in the view from the lobby's floor to ceiling windows. Armsmaster made sure to stop well outside of her personal space, though given what he had seen of her abilities he doubted there was any way that he could actually sneak up on her.

"It's nice to see you again. I thought you wanted to take today off to spend time with your teammate."

She tossed her hair dismissively over her shoulder before rotating to face him. "I changed my mind."

Arsmaster kept a pleasant smile fixed on his face as he resolutely ignored the warnings scrolling through his helmet chat system. "You wanted to see me?"

"I'm bored."

Several of the surrounding tourists turned and made a break for the door. As Armsmaster watched they raced outside and dove off the edge of the platform without breaking stride. As an experienced hero, he was able to keep the ensuing flash of jealousy from showing on his face.

"I'm sorry?"

Arsmaster wondered if he could build a machine that actually measured the sense of impending doom. If he could, this would serve as an excellent moment to use for calibration. Of course, the actual practical unit of measurement for such a device would probably be the milli-Tatsumaki.

"The city is completely peaceful! No monster attacks are happening at all," Tatsumaki said. She made as if to stomp her foot, but caught herself as she realized she was floating in midair.

"Actually, this is just the calm before the storm," Armsmaster said. "When something major happens, the local small fry keep their heads down for a while. Some stronger villains will probably arrive in town soon looking to test their strength."

Tatsumaki brightened up briefly before scowling. "But I'm bored now."

Arsmaster barely managed to avoid a nervous swallow. "You know, when our capes go through a violent mission we usually give them some time off to rest up and relax."

Tatsumaki nodded. "I did that yesterday."

Taking a second to glance through the chat logs, Armsmaster saw that the Protectorate thinkers were in agreement that he should try to change the subject. It seemed like a good idea. He wasn't sure how to find common ground with somebody from another dimension, but he figured most people liked to talk about themselves.

"What would you usually do at home in this kind of situation?" Armsmaster asked.

"If the Hero Association didn't have any leads for me I could usually just watch the news and wait for a monster attack. Here you heroes are all doing police work and investigations," Tatsumaki said, throwing her arms up in frustration. "I don't really understand all that and I'm not going to just barge into people's houses so I hoped you could find a fight for me."

"Hmm... excuse me, I've been rude, making you stand and talk in the lobby like this."

He turned and led her back toward the elevator. Conveniently, this also took them away from the crowd of tourists who had gradually been working up the courage to get out their cellphones and film the meeting between the two heroes.

"Where are we going?" Tatsumaki asked.

"To my workshop."

"Ooh, a mad scientist's laboratory," Tatsumaki said. She looked intrigued by the prospect.

"The science is perfectly reasonable, really," Armsmaster said. It's just that people besides me can't really understand it."

"It's ok, you don't have to hold back," Tatsumaki said. "I've worked with mad science types before."

"What do you mean?" Armsmaster asked as the two of them entered the elevator.

"Usually at the end of a speech like that it's more like... but someday those fools will see, and wish they had appreciated my genius before it was too late! Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha, ha ha," Tatsumaki said, pausing to clear her throat. "Ah, my cackle isn't very good."

The elevator had arrived at the private floor containing his workshop and the doors had opened while she was mid laugh. Armsmaster had seen two Protectorate employees dive for cover at the disturbing sound, but decided it was best not to bring such a thing to Tatsumaki's attention.

"You've worked with tinkers before?" Armsmaster asked, taking the lead once more as they left the elevator.

"I've worked with all sorts of heroes. I didn't make it to number two in the Hero Association just because I can throw a city into orbit with my mind, you know," Tatsumaki said, waving her hand dismissively. "It also took diligent effort, solid teamwork, and a sense of responsibility and restraint."

Armsmaster made a mental note to take the plans he'd been doodling up for a device that would allow him to visit Tatsumaki and King's home dimension and set them on fire. He was saved from the need to come up with an immediate response as they arrived at his workshop.

"Well, here we are. Please, take a seat."

Tatsumaki floated contentedly in midair across the worktable from where he sat down. She looked down with interest at the scattered collection of vials and half-constructed electronic devices that covered the table. Armsmaster had abandoned them there when he received the report of a flying ferry and hadn't had a chance yet to come back and tidy up (or, more likely, continue working).

"What's that you're working on?"

He smiled at the opportunity to talk about his work. "It's an improved tranquilizer. One of the local villains is the sort that gets stronger as you fight him. Without a trump card like this he's far too powerful to capture."

Arsmaster paused, then glanced through the last set of warnings screaming across the head-up display on his helmet. Looking back at Tatsumaki, he saw that she was staring at him with an eager glint in her eye.

There was that sense of impending doom again.

ooOoo

Lisa indulged herself in a small moue of displeasure. Her target didn't notice her change of expression, just as he hadn't noticed her presence over the course of the day. She'd grown increasingly blatant in her surveillance, to the point that she was now walking only a few feet behind King. Despite that, all that she had seen was a very ordinary day. King had purchased three movies and two fighting games, all sequels. Unavailable in his home dimension. Lisa winced at a sudden headache and clamped down on her power as she took a sip of her coffee. She had overused her abilities in an effort to divine something out of the ordinary about King, and she hardly needed supernatural insight to draw such an obvious inference. He had also purchased ten different flavors of pocky as he indulged in his sweet tooth and two different dating simulators, which had caused him some embarrassment. Lisa could only assume that purchase was a favor to the tornado of terror.

Lisa did most of her information gathering under her villainous persona of Tattletale. She'd done work in her civilian guise before, of course, but she usually felt a little guilty about spying on a fellow cape when they were both "off the clock," as it were. She wasn't feeling any guilt today, seeing as King didn't care at all about maintaining a secret identity. Instead her dominant feeling was frustration.

It boggled the mind that King could have had such an uneventful day wandering around through the heart of ABB territory as an unmasked hero. Everywhere he went, ABB enforcers scattered before him in terror before retaking their places and glaring daggers at him after he walked by. He even ate lunch at a sushi place that was a notorious ABB hangout and clandestine ABB safehouse. The whole time he paid absolutely no attention to any of the violent thugs that were ready to shoot him at a moment's notice. Lisa saw three different enforcers reach for their guns before deciding not to pick a fight with a cape. King never even glanced in their direction.

Her power kept insisting that King was a completely ordinary, completely oblivious guy. Her alternate theories were getting more and more outlandish. Could King be so strong that he literally feared nothing and had no need to watch his surroundings? That seemed hard to square with the muscle tension she could see being created just from the exertion of carrying his shopping bags. Did he have a stranger power that just made him look like an ordinary schlub? It was possible, but that kind of thinking was a rabbit hole with no bottom. Maybe he was some kind of thinker who interfered with her own power? Lisa had enough exposure to thinker interference to be pretty confident that wasn't what was happening.

What she really needed was for somebody to poke at King and force him to react. Ideally somebody that she didn't mind seeing smashed into the pavement. She'd try to get Bitch to help out, but she knew that the other girl didn't see her dogs as expendable assets. Lost in thought, Lisa almost didn't notice that King had come to a sudden stop in the middle of the sidewalk.

Luckily, Lisa was able to come to a stop just short of the hero. Unfortunately, the person behind her was not so agile and stumbled into Lisa, pushing her forward. She crashed into King, spilling her coffee all down the back of his hoodie. He spun around, and for the first time Lisa found herself on the receiving end of his intimidating gaze. She mumbled out an apology, reflexively looking at the ground and clamping down hard on her power to look as unthreatening as possible.

"Hey," King said, reaching out with a finger to lift her chin until their eyes met, then giving her a wink. "Don't worry, I'm not going to tattle on you. Just pay more attention next time, ok?"

Lisa just stared at him in shock. He spun around and flipped his hoodie back into position before she could think to rip open the gates on her power and look for information in his microexpressions. She stood frozen with indecision for another few seconds, then turned and ran away as fast as her feet would carry her.

ooOoo

The one saving grace was that I got my hoodie up before everybody could see me blush. Even after months of being famous I still said stupid things whenever I talked to a pretty girl. Man, the way that girl was looking at me she would have slapped me right in the face if I weren't such a well known hero. I was so embarrassed that I took a few more steps before I remembered why I had stopped in the first place. The huge shirtless guy in the metal mask and the group of thugs wearing gang colors lined up around him.

I came to a halt once more. I knew who this guy was.

"Lung."

I felt my heartbeat pick up as I reviewed what I knew. He started out far stronger than a normal man, then as a fight went on he grew stronger and stronger still. He also healed from wounds ridiculously quickly, so he thought nothing of starting a battle against a superior foe. In short, I was totally screwed.

"King. As soon as I heard your name, I knew we could not both live in the same city."

What was he talking about? His name meant "dragon" in one of the local languages. Kings and dragons lived in the same city all the time in fantasy novels. Did they not have the song of ice and fire books in this dimension? This guy's metaphor was all screwed up.

Rather than say anything in response, I drew back my hood, allowing my face to be seen clearly. One of Lung's men reacted by reaching for the gun at his side, but Lung's arm snapped out and pinned his hand in place.

"Do not be foolish. Your role is to keep the civilians back. You don't have my permission to die today."

With that his men spread out and began clearing all the bystanders away. I was glad that innocent people weren't going to get caught up in this, but it also meant that I couldn't use the excuse of my concern for civilians as an excuse to run away. While his men were busy, Lung produced a cigarette from somewhere and lit it with a small ball of fire that appeared from the end of his index finger.

Again, I had mixed feelings. Anything that drew out the pre-fight banter and let me live for a little longer was a good thing in my book. But now I was not only on my way to losing the fight, I was also significantly behind in the cool guy pose off. This was headed for a total disaster. I dropped my shopping bags and crossed my arms over my chest in an attempt to at least close the gap.

"I thought you only bothered fighting people who challenged you directly. This seems like a change of pace, assaulting somebody just for wandering into your neighborhood."

I needed to know why he was attacking me if I wanted to talk him out of it. The name thing couldn't possibly be the real reason. Fortunately, Lung seemed to like the sound of his own voice.

"At Kyushu, I fought Leviathan by myself for hours on end. I was more powerful that day than ever before or since. And when he grew weary of me, he brushed me off as though I were a small child and left. He was toying with me the whole time," Lung said. He paused to take a long draw off his cigarette. He blew out a small cloud of smoke and studied it for a moment before he continued. "I don't bother to seek out fights with ants who know they must team up to even have a chance to defeat me. When I find a strong opponent I seek him out to show him the futility of his existence. If you cannot defeat me, you do not stand a chance against an Endbringer."

While he was talking, I managed to come up with a plan. He only ramped up in power in response to a threat. Since I wasn't a threat at all, he shouldn't ramp up from fighting me. If I could get away from his first few attacks and come up with some bullshit about a technique that stopped him from ramping up, maybe I'd be able to bluff him into running away.

Lung held out an arm, letting the light shine off the dusting of scales that had appeared over his skin. "Your killing intent is strong. There are not many that I recognize as a threat before a proper fight begins."

His power worked off of perceived threats? God damn it, his wikipedia page should include that kind of detail. My heart somehow sped up even further as my panic increased.

All right, I just needed to come up with a different line of bullshit. That was kind of my specialty, I should be able to come up with something. Although... Lung seemed like a tough audience. Back home, Atomic Samurai was basically a good guy. And most of the monsters that I faced weren't all that bright. Lung didn't seem like either an idiot or a good guy, so those lines of manipulation were out. To be fair, though, he did seem to have ideals. They were just twisted. Maybe I could work with that.

"Are you truly so pessimistic? Or do you just adopt a cynical pose to hide your optimism? I think you want a strong opponent to defeat you so that you can justify having hope that humanity will overcome the endbringers."

Now I just needed him to have an epiphany about how humanity was all on the same side in the end and there was no need to fight. We could share a firm handshake and then turn and walk away from each other with renewed purpose.

Instead, he took another long drag on his cigarette, finishing it off. He tossed the butt up into the air and incinerated it with another small fireball, then dusted off his hands.

"The time for talking is over. Now is the time for-"

He cut off suddenly as he was yanked up into the air and then smashed face first into the concrete by an invisible force. Yank. Smash. Yank. Smash. Then his body went flying off into the air in the direction of the bay, clearing the nearby four story buildings by at least fifty feet.

It only took a moment to spot what I knew I would see. Tatsumaki was hovering in the air off to the side of the street, glaring at me.

"Hey, what the hell? I saw him first."

My protest was more of a reflex than a well thought out reaction. I mean, Lung was about to kill me. But the Hero Association had a very firm first come, first serve policy when it came to fighting monsters. By being the first to confront Lung I had dibs on any fight with him. It was a policy that I had cursed with all my heart in the past, but at some point I must have internalized the rule as a normal thing.

Tatsumaki didn't say anything. She just sniffed at me, flipped her hair over her shoulder, and flew off in the same direction she had tossed Lung.

This was bad. Jumping into another hero's fight when they didn't obviously need your help was one step short of flat out assaulting another hero in terms of disrespectful actions. Tatsumaki was headstrong, but she respected the dibs rule. Unless she was super pissed off.

This was really bad.

I looked around at Lung's men. Most of them were staring off in the direction their boss had disappeared, but a few were still looking at me.

"I'd like to stay and finish this, but I need to get home and figure out what I need to apologize for."

With that I spun on my heel and bravely ran away.

ooOoo


	5. Chapter 5

AN: I'm curious how this one will go over...

ooOoo

In the time that it took to get back to the apartment, I was completely unable to figure out what I should say to Tatsumaki. I spent some time after I got back wracking my brain and again completely failed. I spent an hour online schooling newbs on one of the local tactical shooters to clear my head, but no subconscious stroke of genius came to mind. Finally I decided I would just have to wing it.

With my "plan" decided on, the next step was to wait for her to come home. Unfortunately, this proved easier said than done. Being in life threatening situations really tired me out, even if I didn't do any actual fighting. When she still hadn't shown up well after our usual bed time I finally turned in, prepared to face my fate in the morning.

When I got up in the morning I entered the living room to find Tatsumaki dozing on the couch. She started awake at the sound of the door and jumped to her feet.

"Ah, King, you're here."

"Good morning, Tatsumaki."

We looked at each other for a moment. I debated whether I should throw myself on my knees and beg for mercy, but decided against it. I should at least hear her demands first.

"I'm sorry."

If there was one thing I had never expected to hear from her, that was it.

"You-" I began, only to be cut off.

"I shouldn't have jumped into the middle of your fight," she said, apparently determined to finish her apology.

"Oh. Well, it's all right," I said. I had never imagined things could be resolved so simply, if strangely.

"It's not all right! As the number two S-rank I should be setting a good example," Tatsumaki said, visibly upset, "but I was upset so I lashed out and now you, you..."

Somehow she went from ten feet away to right next to me in an instant. She buried her face in my chest, and I watched in disbelief as her shoulders hitched and she started to cry. I was left with nothing to do but awkwardly pat her on the back.

This was now beyond strange. It was practically a bylaw of the Hero Association that Tatsumaki was going to do what Tatsumaki wanted to do. Interfering with a fight was rude, but it didn't even crack the top ten of the most discourteous actions I had known her to take. I think she may have apologized once or twice, but I'd never even heard of her being so wracked with guilt as to break down in tears. She just didn't care enough about other people's opinions to react that way.

I waited until she seemed to have calmed down and stopped crying before I said anything. "Hey, hey, really, it's fine. I'm not upset."

"Really?" Tatsumaki asked, looking up to study my face.

I nodded.

She sniffled a bit. "It wasn't even a good fight. I just held him underwater until he passed out."

Considering what I had read about Lung, I suspected there was a bit more to the story. Then again, it did explain the enormous fog bank that had covered the city last night and was only starting to dissipate this morning. I could easily picture in my mind Tatsumaki hovering in the air with her arms crossed while dunking the enormous dragon under water again and again until he cried uncle.

I couldn't help it, I laughed out loud. Tatsumaki joined in, and some of the tension seemed to drain out of the room. When we both calmed down she smiled at me for a second before looking down and seeing the tear stains on my shirt. In a blink she was suddenly across the room, not quite looking me in the eye. I cast about for something to say to keep the awkwardness at bay.

"You know, now that I think about it, you fought monsters for the Hero Association almost every day."

She nodded. "So what?"

Hearing the warning edge come into her voice was almost a relief. I was still on dangerous ground, but at least it was familiar.

"Here, with not as many monsters to fight, maybe you have time to spend on a hobby," I said. "For example, I play video games."

I picked up one of the cases that I had left on the kitchen counter and showed it to her. On the front a group of men in futuristic military armor advanced on a monstrous figure with their guns drawn. Tatsumaki sniffed disdainfully when she saw it.

"That's ridiculous. Who would fight monsters with guns?"

"Well, it wouldn't be a very good game if you could just push a button and kill all the bad guys," I said. I chuckled a bit as I imagined the reviews users might give to Tatsumaki: The Game.

Tatsumaki didn't laugh. Instead, she fixed me with a serious look. "So, with no challenging fights to interest you, you look for an artificial challenge in video games to keep you from being bored?"

"Hey!"

Come on. Video games are fun. Plus, if you screw up when you play a video game, you don't die in real life. I don't need some dark super-dramatic reason for everything I do, you know. Also, I'm not the person putting us through a crazy roller-coaster ride of emotions this morning, so I don't see why I should be the target of this amateur psychoanalysis.

These thoughts passed through my mind. I did not speak any of them out loud because I didn't want to be launched out the window.

"You know," Tatsumaki said, still serious, "there are other things in life that are challenging besides fights. Real things, with real rewards."

"What do you mean?"

"Figure it out for yourself, idiot."

Tatsumaki flipped her hair over her shoulder and turned away from me, drifting into the kitchen where she started to pull together breakfast makings. As she turned, just for the briefest instant, a spot of color appeared on her cheeks. I wouldn't have noticed if not for the hours I spent training to spot Yuki's famous one frame blush from Doki Doki Sisters' tsundere route. That game was surprisingly challenging to finish at 100% completion. I had to go online to-wait a minute.

Tsundere route? _Tsundere route?_ **_Tsundere route?_**

It's an obligatory inclusion in every dating game. The girl with the prickly exterior concealing her sensitive heart. She'll insult you at the drop of a hat and then dissolve into a blushing mess when she receives a compliment. It takes a masterful player to get through the tsundere story line without being subject to comedic violence at least once, whether it be a slap in the face, a punt across the room, or in Tatsumaki's case a ballistic launch out of the city.

I stared at her, wishing that I had some kind of esper power so that I could dismiss the idea out of hand. I'd never really thought about Tatsumaki in a romantic context before. If you'd pressed me on it I guess I would have said that she'd either be married to some henpecked nobody or she might have feelings for some S-class hero... like everybody thought I was. Damn it.

She was blushing furiously now. When I figured out why I almost cursed out loud. In the face of such a shocking revelation, naturally my heart rate had spiraled out of control. The trusty King Engine had saved me from countless dangers by scaring away monsters with the false impression of blood lust. Now it was turned against me, pushing me into a dangerous situation through an entirely different misinterpretation.

There should have been a warning flag raised before I was placed into this spot. How was I supposed to get through this without a dialogue tree? Time to do what I always do: bluff and hope for the best.

"I can be pretty dense sometimes," I said.

"Obviously," she replied. The mocking edge was gone from her voice, and she looked down to where her hands rested on the kitchen counter, breakfast ingredients forgotten.

What did I even want to happen here? Besides immediate survival, of course. Was Tatsumaki attractive? Yes. With her pretty face and slender body she could only be described as cute, although using that word around her was naturally forbidden. What about her personality? Honestly, she actually was the hero I pretended to be. She could be abrasive, but she wasn't actually violent unless you went out of your way to provoke her. And she was certainly never dull to be around. The million dollar question: did I, personally, have any special feelings for her, personally? I couldn't answer that question in a panic under time pressure.

That whole line of thought was pointless, though. The bottom line was that I'm not the kind of guy who starts a relationship under false pretenses. There was a reason I spent my time with dating games instead of groupies. There could be nothing between me and Tatsumaki. It was just a question of getting to that point while sparing her feelings and my delicate health.

I took a step forward and reached across the counter to take her hand. "It's dangerous for heroes to get too close to each other."

She looked up at me with fire in her eyes. "It's dangerous any time you open up your heart to someone."

It's a little strange to say it, but I never really felt bad about being a fake hero. If the suits at the Hero Association were dumb enough to think I was a monster killer just because I happened to be standing next to some dead monsters, then I was happy to cash their checks. If the other S-class meatheads wanted to get to know me by picking a fight, I didn't feel bad about tricking them into backing down. If monsters wanted to hurt people, I felt proud that I could get them to stop, even if it was under false pretenses.

Now, under the passionate gaze of somebody who was a true hero, finding myself thinking about how to twist that passion using a lie to save my own skin? I felt like the lowest of the low. I couldn't think of anything clever to say. I just felt tired.

"I'm not a guy you should trust with your heart," I said. I gave her hand a squeeze, then turned and walked away.

When I reached the door, I turned back. She was still standing in the kitchen, staring at me. "I'm sorry."

If she'd done anything at all to stop me, I would have broken down and told her the whole truth right then and there. She didn't, though, so I left the apartment and wandered off into the city.

It took me a few hours before it occurred to me that I'd have to return to the apartment eventually. Instead, I made my way to a payphone. Fortunately the number for the Protectorate was printed on the reference card and it was surprisingly easy to get Armsmaster on the line.

"King? Is something wrong?"

"Ah... don't worry about it. I was wondering if you could arrange for another place to stay?"

"Of course. If you stay where you are I can escort you there myself. Was something wrong with the apartment we provided?"

"No, not at all. Tatsumaki just needs some space, I think."

"Should we start evacuating the city?"

I laughed, then stopped when his end of the line stayed silent. "No, no. I know she seems scary at first, but she's really a sweet girl."

"Mm," he said, before pausing. "If you need to talk about anything, I'm always available."

"Thanks, but I'm fine. I just remembered why I usually work alone, is all."

I hung up the phone and stepped over to lean against a nearby streetlamp with a sigh. Even someone like me can't lie all the time.

ooOoo

Six people sat around a table in a well-lit conference room. The room was nestled at the heart of an extensive research facility. The room, the building complex, and indeed the entire dimension in which they sat were not known of in Earth Bet. Cauldron had exerted a great deal of effort to ensure that such was the case.

Cauldron itself was known, but not well. Its actions were cloaked in secrecy. Its deeds more legend than rumor, more myth than legend. No one of consequence believed in a world spanning conspiracy that had tentacles deep in every level of parahuman society. Cauldron had exerted a great deal of effort to ensure that as well.

Three of the people in the room were widely known as the most powerful heroes on Earth Bet. One was a former member of Earth Bet's most notorious group of villains. One was an ordinary human being. And one was the most powerful parahuman alive.

Legend was in many ways the face of the Protectorate. The head of the New York branch of the organization, he was widely known for his noble character. He also possessed a formidable collection of abilities. He was capable of flying at tremendous speed, absorbing powerful attacks without harm, and could launch a wide array of laser attacks capable of results that defied the laws of physics. He participated in Cauldron because he thought it was the right thing to do.

Alexandria was both irresistable force and immovable object. She conceived of the idea of the PRT and Protectorate as organizations that would subject parahumans to oversight by normal humans, then arranged events so that her civilian persona rose to the head of the PRT. She participated in Cauldron because she believed it was necessary.

Eidolon was widely regarded as the most powerful hero on Earth Bet. He had access to a dizzying array of powers, subject only to the restriction that he could only wield three at any one time. He participated in Cauldron so that he could save the world.

The Number Man had a power that gave him an instinctive understanding of almost anything that could be reduced to mathematics. In his past life he had used his mastery of angles, leverage, and probabilities to become a terrifying melee combatant. He participated in Cauldron because he thought it was interesting.

Doctor Mother was the leader of Cauldron. Though she lacked any superhuman abilities, it was her vision and willpower that in many ways held the group together. She participated in Cauldron in order to preserve humanity in the face of an alien invasion.

Contessa was the reason Cauldron's plans almost always succeeded. Her power allowed her to chart a path to achieve any goal that she desired. The only entities that she could not directly incorporate into her paths were Eidolon, Scion, and the Endbringers. Ironically, the goal of Cauldron was the destruction of Scion and the Endbringers. She participated in Cauldron in order to surpass her own limitations.

Contessa could not exceed the ability of her path by asking for a path. In other words, accomplishing something that she could not directly plan for required that she receive guidance from a source other than her ability. This could be her own judgment or advice from other people. Thus, in order to accomplish her ultimate goal it was sometimes necessary to disregard the ruthless efficiency of her path and take direction from other people.

Contessa knew this to be true. She had formulated much of the argument herself, back in the early days of Cauldron. That didn't make it any less boring to attend a meeting where other people were brought up to speed on a subject that her power had already analyzed and used to derive the most efficient path forward.

She could short circuit the process. Her power would guide her to find the words that would persuade the others around to her point of view. It would be a massive breach of trust, of course, but the real cost would be in the lost opportunity. If all of her actions were in accordance with a path, she could never reach a destination where the path did not lead.

One small mercy was that Doctor Mother did not feel the need for long speeches at every meeting. Instead she simply announced why they had been brought together.

"We have been provided with a recording from one of our contacts that sheds light on the ongoing situation in Brockton Bay."

Though Cauldron was powerful, it was a small organization. It simply wasn't practical for the people in the room to do all of the work that needed doing. Like any group in that situation, they used contract labor as a force multiplier. In their case they didn't use contracts so much as exchanges of favors and threats of certain death, but the basic principle was the same.

Doctor Mother leaned forward and placed a small device at the center of the table. Glancing around to ensure that she had everybody's undivided attention, she pressed a button and sat back in her seat as a recording started to play.

"He knows!"

The voice of Lisa Wilbourn, also known as Sarah Livsey, also known as Tattletale, was recognizable enough. It did take Contessa a second to place what seemed off about it. It was the first time she had heard the girl speak without some sort of smug, I-know-something-you-don't-know inflection in her voice. In fact, the girl in the recording sounded flustered, on the brink of outright panic.

A hum of background noise came through as she spoke, suggesting that she was on a cheap cell phone. Her voice was a bit uneven, as though she was running as she made the call.

"Explain."

Coil. Somehow his voice managed to be simultaneously oily and threatening even in such a brief statement. No doubt he was lurking in his underground lair for the duration of the conversation. It was as if the man aspired to be the villain in a Saturday morning cartoon.

Contessa relaxed back into her seat as an idle thought crossed her mind. _Path to ensure Coil was brought down by a group of plucky teenage capes. Three steps_. The only surprise was that she would have to do anything at all.

"I had eyes on him all day. All day! The whole time, I could have sworn that he had no idea I was there. But he knew! He just didn't care," Lisa said. There was a brief pause, and the sound of a door opening in the background. "I don't know how he does it, but something about him doesn't just block Thinker powers. It fakes them out. You think you know everything, but you know nothing. Nothing!"

The last word ended as a shriek. There was a muffled thump that Contessa was able to decipher as a pair of shopping bags being dropped on a bed after a brief consultation with her power.

"Calm yourself."

Even after hearing Tattletale's report, the man still sounded like he was nonchalantly deciding which elementary school he would circle while trying to lure unattended children into his van. _Path to ensure Coil was brought down by a group of plucky teenage capes and that afterward one of them removed his mask and announced 'Golly, it was Mr. Calvert the whole time.' Fifty-seven steps._ Contessa filed that one away for possible implementation once the current crisis had passed.

"Calm myself? I'm well past that. He saw my face. He winked at me! A minute later I'm running away and Lung's body goes sailing by overhead," Lisa said. A faint electric buzzing noise rose in the background. "I'm shaving off my hair, wearing a wig, putting in some color changing eye contacts, and staying inside for the next two weeks."

"You're overreacting."

"We saw the same surveillance tape. That green haired menace was nervous about talking him down, and we know what she's capable of," Lisa said. There was another long pause. "Look, boss, I'll be blunt. I know you don't trust me. You're some kind of thinker. Listen. Do whatever it is you do so you know I'm telling the truth. If you think you know something about King? You think you've found some kind of advantage? All you know is what he wants you to know."

Doctor Mother reached out and stopped the playback. "The rest of the call is just posturing for dominance. I can make a copy available if you're interested but you've heard what matters. Thoughts?"

"Tattletale is wrong. She is taking faulty conclusions and feeding them back in for the basis of future deductions, creating a spiral of nonsense. King is a baseline human," Contessa said.

"So you've said," Eidolon said, "but perhaps that's just what he wants you to think?"

He actually sounded happy at the thought that Contessa could be wrong, even as he raised the possibility of that a major threat to Cauldron existed. Contessa knew he resented the fact that he was growing weaker over the years while she remained as strong as ever. In some ways she was stronger as, for example, she was unable to predict Eidolon directly but had managed to build a fairly accurate model of the man that she could use as she consulted her power. _Yes, he was that much of a petty asshole._

 _Path to replacing the coffee at the Houston Protectorate with decaf_... No. She didn't want to go down that road. Instead she took a calming breath and maintained her composure as she replied. "I am able to create paths using or harming King without interference. The only complicating factor is Tatsumaki. She should be our only focus."

"I don't know," Alexandria said. "Tattletale is a powerful thinker, and she has seen King with her own eyes. Are you sure you can't-"

"No," Contessa said, her tone firm. "The only way to be certain to be safe from Tatsumaki is to stay out of Brockton Bay."

"Relatively safe," Legend said. "Those videos from Ellisburg..."

"Tatsumaki is very strong, yes," Doctor Mother added. "But we need more than strength to accomplish our goals. We need powers that break the rules. If King is able to fool predictive abilities to such a degree, that could be incredibly valuable."

Contessa felt a flash of irritation, but clamped down an urge to reach for her power and simply convince everybody she was right. While she felt quite certain that this was a waste of time, it was true that a power that could so thoroughly fool hers would be an invaluable find.

"It does seem unlikely that someone like Tatsumaki would show respect for somebody completely powerless," the Number Man said. "I think we need more data."

Looking around the table, Contessa saw that everybody was nodding in agreement. She shrugged, giving in without a fuss. The whole point of this exercise was to get input from other people. Besides, it could never hurt to learn more, even if she was sure they already knew everything worth knowing about King.

"Fortunately," Doctor Mother said, "we have access to King's home dimension. We will need to bring somebody here who can tell us the truth about King. A B-list hero, somebody who won't be missed."

Contessa consulted her power. _Five steps_. "Easily done."

Legend stood from the table. "I should get back to New York before I'm missed."

Contessa watched him go. He was always so eager to save the day, so long as he didn't have get his hands dirty. It was easy to feel disdain for his actions, but a part of her wondered if she would feel the same way if she hadn't been letting her power guide her for so long. Cauldron hadn't used to have such open disagreement back in the early years. And Legend didn't even know all of the things that they got up to these days.

Well, she could ponder the state of her soul later. Right now she had work to do.

ooOoo


	6. Chapter 6

AN: I'm going to be away from the internet for the next little while, so updates could be sparse for the next week or two.

ooOoo

With nothing better to do, I spent most of the afternoon shopping for a replacement game console. I wasn't going to be retrieving anything from the apartment any time soon. For once I was able to get through a shopping trip without a dramatic confrontation. At least until I was most of the way back to the hotel and a woman came walking around the corner looking very much the worse for wear.

She was wearing what looked like it had been an expensive suit, topped off with a matching fedora. The right half of the fedora was just gone. The right side of the suit was barely hanging on, a patchwork of rips and stains that seemed like it was being held together by a mass of melted fabric. Despite all of the damage to her outfit, the woman walked with an even stride and her head held high. I had stopped still in the sidewalk on seeing her, but she never hesitated. She looked me in the eye as she walked past and gave me a single nod without breaking stride.

She definitely had the sort of healthy athletic look common to heroes in this dimension and my own. Between that and her ability to power through whatever had happened to her clothes I suspected she was one of the local heroes. They could be touchy about secret identities, though, so I didn't say anything to her. Man, now that she had picked me out like that everybody was definitely going to expect me to take care of the monster.

I could feel my heartbeat picking up. Well, might as well get it over with. I took a deep breath, stepped around the corner, and promptly forgot all about the monster when I saw a familiar bald head in the crowd.

"Hey! Saitama!"

He looked around, briefly confused, then smiled when he spotted me. "King? I thought you were on a long term mission."

"Yeah, invading the monster dimension. Only, we ended up in the wrong place," I said, waving my arms around vaguely to encompass the world around us. "How did you get here? Finally find a good fight?"

I wouldn't put it past him to find some way to punch through dimensions. He's a little funny looking, but he's crazy strong.

"Eh, not really," Saitama said, looking a little bummed out.

"Well, there's some pretty cool stuff here. Check it out," I said, digging into my shopping bag and holding one of my prize purchases on display.

As expected, his eyes lit up when he saw it. "They made a second Street Fighter?"

"They made a whole series in this dimension. Want to try?"

Saitama tapped his chin. "You know, every time we played before you always had hundreds of hours of experience, but these games will be new to both of us."

"You think that will make a difference?" I asked.

Saitama cracked his knuckles. "Let's find out."

With that, we both made our way into the hotel. Our arrival caused a bit of a stir but the hotel staff were as professional as Armsmaster had promised and largely ignored the presence of heroes in their midst. When we got into the elevator Saitama raised the issue I had been half hoping and half dreading to talk about.

"Is the tornado around? I thought she was on this mission too."

I cleared my throat. "It's kind of a long story."

It didn't take much more prompting before I spilled the whole tale of my recent romantic misadventures. There weren't a lot of people I could count on to lend a sympathetic ear for stories about my personal life, and I guess I needed a sounding board. Saitama could be a little weird sometimes, but he usually had some wise advice to offer.

And so, a few minutes later, the only other guy on this world from my home dimension was rolling around on the floor of my hotel room, laughing uncontrollably. I just ignored him and unboxed the game console, checking to make sure that all of the components the manual said should be there were actually in the box. He seemed to be slowing down. I checked the input port on the TV and unpacked the appropriate connecting cable. By the time I managed to get the stupid packaging open he more or less had himself under control.

"The brat has feelings?"

I nodded. "She's a human being, of course she has feelings."

"You... you feel protective! Of the tornado of terror!"

With that, he dissolved into laughter once more. I sighed before getting back to work. Power cable. Check. Video. Check. Audio. Check. Caffeinated beverages. Check. Remote control. Check. Ah, auxiliary input channel, my old friend. You never judge me.

The title screen came up, and Saitama pulled himself up to settle back into the couch. He was completely unmoved by the mild glare I gave him along with the controller. I selected my character without delay, while he took his time checking out the available options.

"Well, I'm happy for you," he said, scrolling through the bottom row of characters. "Just don't invite me to the wedding and everything will be fine."

I just about choked on my soda. "Hey, you're assuming an awful lot there."

He scoffed. "Like you'd ever have the guts to break up with the brat."

That... was probably true. I could feel my heart rate picking up just thinking about how Tatsumaki would react to being dumped. Still, for the sake of the tattered remnants of my masculine pride, I couldn't outright admit it. Besides, he was missing an important point here.

"We aren't even dating. I told you that."

Saitama finally picked a character, and the fight began. We spent the first little while just testing out how the characters moved. Just as in real life, the start of a battle was no reason to stop talking, of course.

"Well, I haven't played as many dating games as you..." he began.

"Hey!"

"But one thing I do know is that taking the mysterious guy who warns the girls away because he's dangerous is basically easy mode," he continued. "Aha! Low kick combo revised: sweep the leg strategy."

I smiled even as my character was sent flying back across the screen. I actually enjoyed these older fighting games. They emphasized strategy and precision more than super combos. The trick is to learn the size of your hitbox, the reach associated with each attack, and which attacks are given priority. Then you try to position yourself at the distance that favors your fighter and punish your opponent when they try to do anything.

Scrubs just try to find one ultimate attack and ride it to victory. I don't even know why they think that strategy would work.

I was starting to get a feel for the attacks in this game. I also had a sinking feeling that Saitama might have a point.

"That can't be right," I protested. Had I really put myself on the path of the brooding jackass love interest? That really should have come with a warning flag.

"What makes you think she's going to just give up?" Saitama asked. "Ha, I have you now!"

That was a fair point. On some level this wasn't even about me being attractive, but just about Tatsumaki not having something that she wanted. I worried at the tip of my tongue as I thought. The game was flowing smoothly now. Step back. Step forward. His defense is back up, so throw a low block breaking punch. Then my own sweep kick.

"What do I do?" I asked.

Step back. Step forward. Atomic piledriver. So much for round one.

"Hey! Hey! What happened?" Saitama said, then settled down as the fighters took their places for round two. "She likes you. You like her. Do you really need me to tell you what to do?"

"She likes the S-class hero King," I pointed out.

"That's you," he said. "All right, this time for sure!"

"You know what I mean," I said, then sighed. Who would have thought that living a life of lies could have this kind of consequence? Just when I started getting comfortable with the idea of monsters attacking me all the time, something new jumped out of the woodwork.

"Hmm, yeah," he said. "Ok, how about this: when you first meet somebody, you don't tell them all your embarrassing secrets right away, right? Over time they get to know the real you and accept the truth as they discover it. Every relationship is at least a little that way."

There we go, some of the deep wisdom that I was hoping for. He got in a few hits while I was thinking over what he said, but it was a small price to pay in exchange for a ray of hope.

"You really think that'll work?" I asked.

"With the tornado?" Saitama asked, before laughing. "No way. Mercy and understanding isn't exactly her specialty."

"Man, that's just mean," I said. Another missed low kick created another opening, and this time I exploited it ruthlessly. Soon the match was over.

Saitama leaned back and stretched. Then he turned to look me in the eye, a serious expression on his face.

"I can tell you one thing for sure. Whatever you want to happen, you can't make it happen by hiding in here," he said. "Now be quiet and let me focus, I almost had you that time."

ooOoo

Contessa slumped down in a chair in the hotel lobby. Her path to survival- _HIDE!_ -told her she would be out of sight there. The prediction was only accompanied by a small amount of the fuzziness she had come to associate with capes from what she was coming to call Earth Terror. She had first been exposed to the effect when Tatsumaki appeared in Brockton Bay. That had led her to Brockton Bay out of an abundance of caution but she had grown more comfortable with the phenomenon over time.

When more fuzziness had appeared as she was planning the abduction of Caped Baldy, she had responded with appropriate care by ensuring that both Eidolon and Alexandria were present when the B-rank hero was portaled into the prison level of Cauldron's base. That was when things began to go horribly wrong.

The elevator let out a ding and Contessa sat up a little straighter as one of her power's predictions showed true: King and Caped Baldy knew each other. Their body language spoke of friendship and mutual respect as they walked out into the lobby. They made their way past the conveniently placed pillar that hid Contessa from view before pausing by the exit doors.

Caped Baldy scratched the back of his head before he spoke. "Man, I really thought I could beat you this time. I never really had a chance, did I?"

King chuckled. "Don't feel bad. Everybody starts out as a scrub."

"I guess."

Contessa briefly consulted her power. _Talking about video games._

 _"You know nothing!"_

"Are you going to need a, hm, ride back home? I can check-" King said, before Caped Baldy waved him off.

"No, no, it's fine. I'm going to take a look around first before I go," he said. "I've never been in a different dimension before."

"All right. Have fun out there," King said.

King sounded completely unconcerned about any danger that might threaten his friend while he was wandering around Earth Bet. Considering what had happened to Cauldron's base, that lack of concern was completely justified. It was another data point to suggest that the capes from Earth Terror had a reasonable handle on each other's abilities. Contessa pressed herself back in her chair as the two men shook hands in farewell.

The fuzziness that had been plaguing the path started to fade as Caped Baldy left the building. As expected, King's eyes widened when he saw her. He rushed over to stand in front of her, and for the first time Contessa felt the power of King's direct attention. It was an intimidating experience. Between his chiseled jawline, the mysterious scars over his eye, and his direct, piercing gaze, King looked every inch the hero.

"Hey, I saw you before. What happened?" King said, then shook his head. "No, that doesn't matter. How can I help you?"

Just an ordinary human. Paths spiraled through her head. Paths to King's death, whether at her hand or through an apparent accident. Paths to suborn King to her cause. To rebuild Cauldron. All of them practically begging to be carried out, all of them as simple to implement as just wanting it to happen.

 _"You only know what he wants you to know."_

For the first time in years, Contessa completely disengaged herself from her power. She sagged in her seat, no longer able to hide the injuries she has suffered by masking them with perfect posture. Finally, she broke down and admitted the truth.

"I don't know."

King continued to look at her without saying anything. She thought she saw a flicker of compassion in his eyes, but it could have been a trick of the light. Contessa resolutely resisted the urge to find out one way or the other by consulting her power.

"What do you do?" she continued. "When you make a huge mistake and you can't fix it, what do you do?"

King's brow furrowed in thought. "I would say, listen to your heart and do what you think is right. You can't change the past, but you can do better in the future."

Contessa considered his response. Perhaps the worst part of the fall of Cauldron, other than the immediate terror and pain, was the effect on all of her long term paths aimed at preserving human civilization. They had all grown shorter, promising greater results for much less effort on her part. They were infected with the all too familiar fuzziness, but the conclusion was clear enough: humanity was better off with Cauldron gone.

For years she had not only worked herself to the bone, she had sacrificed every principle, crossed every line, all in pursuit of the survival of humanity. She had told herself that each atrocity would be paid off in time, that the ends justified the means. For all that her power let her carry out her paths flawlessly, it couldn't erase the weight from her conscience that accumulated with each path completed.

What if, after all that work, they simply couldn't influence the primary course of events? If they were nothing more than children playing under the benign gaze of adults. Able to hurt each other or help each other, but impossibly far from affecting world events. If that was the case, maybe she should just do what was right instead of trying to manipulate the whole world for their own good. Maybe that's what she should have been doing all along.

"Do you want me to call the PRT?" King asked, mistaking the grimace that accompanied her flash of insight for a sign of pain. Or perhaps not.

Contessa decided that the best way to avoid driving herself crazy with speculation about King was to avoid the use of her powers in a way that targeted him, specifically. Of course, that hardly meant that she would abandon her power completely.

"First, I'm going to need a new hat."

If she was going to dedicate herself to doing the right thing, she might as well look good doing it.

ooOoo


End file.
